Earlier, in 1275, a statute was issued under the title “Against slanderous reports, or tales, to cause discord betwixt king and people "-with what effect we know not. But more than a statute was needed to stem the tide of direct and indirect denunciations of the clergy which in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries appeared in English. The dialectic inanities of "false clerks" were ridiculed in the Song of Nego. And even the pillars of the Church were openly denounced. In a short poem, When Holy Church is Under Foot, it is pointed out that simony has taken the place of Simon as the rock on which the Church is built. The Church, formerly so beloved, is now despised by all. Even the Pope is guilty of bribery. But most notable is the sorry state of ecclesiastical conditions set forth in a poem On the Evil Times of Edward II., preserved in the Auchinleck MS. It is composed of 476 long lines, but is incomplete. The author undertakes to tell why there is war and revenge and manslaughter in the land, why hunger and dearth have subdued the poor, why their cattle are dead and corn is dear.

The clergy do amiss. Truth is little among them. At the court of Rome, "where Truth should begin," it is forbidden the place. He dare not enter though the pope should call him in, for the pope's clerks have sworn his death. For fear of being slain he dare not appear among the cardinals. If he meets Simony, he will have his beard shaken. The wisest clerk in the world would not be heard at Rome if he came silverless, but any wretch is welcome if he brings gold. Some bishops and archbishops are fools and lead a sorry life. They dare not reprove their clergy for fear of being betrayed themselves. Certainly Holy Church has much degenerated since St. Thomas was slain. He was a pillar to hold her upright. Now too many prelates serve king as well as Church. Archdeacons take meed of one another, and let the parsons and priests have wives. Covetousness stops their mouths. When a post is vacant it is sold to the highest bidder. The new incumbent does his own sweet will. He gathers money and rides out of town with hawks and hounds into a strange country, where he dwells comfortably, leaving his church to a thief and a whore. Though the bishop knows of the evil behaviour of his reckless subordinates, a little money will stop his mouth. If a parson have a priest of clean life, who is a good counsellor to maiden and to wife, there will come a "daff" and replace him for a little less, though he cannot do a farthing's worth of good, scarcely sing a mass but ill, and thus

shall the parish be ruined for lack of lore. A lewd priest is no better than a

jay in a cage. Abbots and priors counterfeit knights. Pride is master in

every house of an Order. Religion is despised. The poor are kept out of the monasteries. The monks dress comfortably and give themselves up to ease and gluttony. They are fat and red-cheeked. The friars preach more for a

bushel of wheat than to save a soul. In shrift they discriminate between the rich and the poor. They fight for the corpse of a rich man. If a corpse is

fat, the friar hastens to the dirige; if it is lean, he loafs about his cloister and keeps his feet clean at home. A man can bear false witness against his wife at a consistory court and get rid of her, then betake himself to his neighbour's spouse, and while he has silver he suffers no harm. False physicians help men to die, they pretend that a man is sicker than he is, deceive the wife to get money for medicines, and themselves eat the good dishes she prepares. Earls, barons, and knights are no longer true to their calling. Instead of going to the Holy Land, they dispute with one another at home. They are lions in the hall and hares in the field. In their dress they can hardly be distinguished from gleemen. He who should be as courteous and gentle as a lady can chide like a town-scold. Young boys are dubbed knights. Squires are no longer gentlemen, but profane and false. Justices, "who will do wrong for meed," sheriffs, mayors, and bailiffs all deserve the lash of scorn. The king is deceived by them. His officials are cheats. The poor are pillaged, browbeaten, oppressed. Attorneys, chapmen, assisors are likewise deceitful. "God send truth into this land,” prays the poet, "for trickery dureth too long." "For falseness is so far forth over all the land i-sprung, that well-nigh is no truth neither in tongue nor in heart, and therefore it is no wonder though all the world smart." The afflictions of the people are a righteous retribution. Great lordings are brought low because of their pride. The folly of prelates ministers to civil strife. They do not see the truth for mist.

more to lose their lands than the love of Christ.

For had the clergy holden together,

And not flecked about, neither hither nor thither,

They dread

But looked where the truth was, and there have bileved (remained),
Then were the baronage whole, that now is all to-dreved (driven apart)
So wide

But certes England is shamed through falseness and through pride.

This poem has been summarised in detail because of its large significance. The author wrote before Langland was born. Yet here before him the plain message of the Plowman is delivered. Here is the same earnestness without desire for revolt, the same spirit of strong denunciation prompted by

unselfishness, the same love of England and sorrow for her shame-above all, the same insistence on the need to seek out and glorify Truth.

Likewise interesting in the study of Langland's work, as well as for its own sake, is the alliterative poem entitled A Treatise and Good Short Refreyte (Dispute) betwixt Winner and Waster, which will be discussed from other points of view when all the products of the so-called alliterative revival are examined together. In this place, however, it deserves notice as a satire of merit on the social conditions of England at the middle of the fourteenth century. Winner and Waster are the leaders of two hosts whom the poet sees in a vision ready for angry conflict. Each lays his case before King Edward III., who undertakes to be their judge. He stops their wrangling, and tells each to dwell where he is loved most, Winner together with the pope and cardinals of Rome, Waster in the busy streets of London, until he shall accompany the King on his Continental wars. The poem contains some 500 long lines, but is incomplete. for its freshness and force.

It is remarkable

In a short stanzaic poem entitled Sir Penny we have a fourteenth-century form of Latin rhymes of Map's time, the titular character being suggestive of Lady Meed. A satire on conditions in the reign of Richard II., in macaronic verse, begins as follows:

Sing I would, but, alas! descendunt prospera grata;
England sometimes was regnorum gemma vocata;

Of manhood the flower ibi quoque quondam floruit omnis,

Now gone is that tower, traduntur talia sompnis,
Lechery, sloth, and pride, hii sunt quibus Anglia paret,
Sith truth is set aside, dic qualiter Anglia staret.

Latin had been all along the chief medium of clerical protest, and it was not suddenly abandoned. But English was bound to vindicate itself fully. English songs stirred the people tremendously when learned works were the reading of but a few. Gower's Vox Clamantis could have been in no large sense potent, but such

words as "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?"—the refrain of English poems of the same period -became the mottoes of revolt. With the incidental satire in Chaucer's work all are familiar. Like Langland's and Gower's, it was prepared for by works written in Latin, French, and English by clerks.

In this connection may also be mentioned a stray satirical poem of later date, also a vision, which seems to betray in its setting the influence of The Pearl, and now bears the descriptive title Why I cannot be a Nun.

A maiden who desires to be a nun, but whose father is opposed, goes walking one May morning in her garden to see "the sweet effect of April flowers," and listen to the song of beautiful birds. In a fair arbor she prays to God to help His handmaid “ despised and in point to perish." Then she falls in a trance "among the herbs fresh and fine." While asleep, with her woeful head on a bed of camomile, she fancies that a fair lady addresses her by her own name, Katherine, saying that she has come to comfort her. The girl recognises before her the most beautiful and finelyattired lady she has ever seen, and straightway forgets all her mourning. Her companion, whose name, she discovers, is Experience, guides her to a nunnery, which is fair without but ill-governed within. There dwelt Dames Pride, Hypocrisy, Envy, Love Inordinate, Lust, Wanton, Vice. Dame Devout had been put to death by Dame Sloth and Dame Vainglory, Dame Chastity had "little cheer." Dame Patience and Dame Charity occupied a chamber outside the place. But Dame Envy was in every corner, and Dame Disobedient was very busy. Experience explains at last to Katherine that she has shown her this convent "so full of sin " to reconcile her to her father's will. Not all nuns, but the most part, were "feeble, ignorant, and froward." Yet they should be what their attire indicates. "A fair garland of ivy green which hangeth at a tavern door is a false token as I ween, but if there be good wine and sure." Nuns should follow the example of holy virgin saints.

In a thirteenth-century Satire on the Monks and People of Kildare (containing twenty stanzas of four lines each, with changing, but insignificant, refrain), various saints, ecclesiastics, and tradespeople are bidden "hail," and briefly described. The minstrel's final appeal to his friends is "to drink deep and make them glad."

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CHAPTER VIII

RELIGIOUS WORKS

BIBLE PARAPHRASE AND APOCRYPHAL STORY

In early Anglo-Saxon times it was in Northumbria that poetry flourished; and the themes of the leading Northern poets, Cadmon and Cynewulf, were almost exclusively religious. The literary preeminence of Northumbria was soon, however, overthrown, and for nearly six centuries scarcely a singer of note is to be found there. When at last Northern poets again appear, they are seen to write once more in the spirit of their long-distant predecessors: they treat with earnestness and power religious themes in verse. Late in the thirteenth century was composed in the North a noteworthy metrical paraphrase of the Psalms; and in the fourteenth, lives of saints, legends, and other sorts of religious poems abound.

In the South before 1150 the West-Saxon Gospels were transcribed. About 1300 a prose Psalter was prepared in the West Midland. But deserving more particular mention are the paraphrases of Genesis and Exodus, by an anonymous author in the South-East Midland, about 1250. Here we have the chief events of the Biblical account with little legendary embellishment, with little comment or sermonising. We find not only the salient features of the narrative of the first two books, but also certain parts of Numbers and Deuteronomy relating to the wanderings of the Israelites and the life of Moses. But how different is this